Rod Mcclair-burgess

[Daniel Priestley @DanielPriestley]

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That opening idea - we’re all born into this world as equals with the right to freely go about our business.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Power is bottom up. Ordinary people have rights and power and we delegate it to those in Government. We are not granted permissions by a powerful institution. We are the ones with the power and we delegate some of it to them.

“Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”

If the Government isn’t able to secure our rights and freedoms they have to go. Our rights and freedoms are permanent they aren’t.

“We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The ultimate skin in the game - 56 wealthy, successful men willing to stake it all on these ideas. Signing this document was punishable by death. They signed it.

Happy 250th birthday USA. A remarkable chapter in the human story.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@ClarksonsFarm1

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@benonwine

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

I'll tell you what I don't like, Darren. I can't speak for everyone, but these are my thoughts…

I don't like a tax burden at its highest level since 1948, under your government and the last, producing the weakest growth in a generation. And worsening public services to boot.

I don't like a 46% hike in the minimum wage for under-21s in three years that's helped push UK youth unemployment to 16.1%, above the eurozone average. I want young people paid more, earned through growth, not handed down by decree that squashes the rungs above them and tells a skilled forty-year-old their two decades of graft are worth precisely the same as someone walking through the door on Monday morning.

I don't like industrial electricity prices that are the highest of any IEA country reporting. Full stop. UK steelmakers pay 40% more than their French competitors. You don't build a future of advanced manufacturing on those numbers.

I don't like a planning system that takes longer to consent a pylon than to build one, business rates that punish high-street enterprise, and employment costs that turn every hire into a risk.

I don't like watching world-class British research get commercialised in Boston and Palo Alto because the capital, the talent and the regulatory patience aren't here. They're fleeing.

I don't like long-term borrowing costs at their highest level in over 25 years, eating into every budget for schools, hospitals and defence before a penny is spent.

I don't like the OECD saying that we're going to be the hardest hit economy as a result of a conflict in the Middle East that's got nothing to do with us. All because we've made ourselves weak and vulnerable.

I don't like a government that confuses 'raising money' with 'creating wealth'. Or 'standing against unearned wealth' with taxing to death the people who actually make things happen in this country.

You don't lift children out of poverty by strangling the economy that pays for their schools. You do it by letting Britain grow again. Letting it play to its abundance of strengths.

In this case, I feel the best way is for government to get the hell out of the way.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital.

Cette phrase change tout.

L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ?

Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible.

Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur.

Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé.

Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire.

L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants.

Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution.

Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain.

Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée.

Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien.

La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose.

Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins.

Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires.

La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@BethRigby It changes nothing. He’s a sacrificial PM for the local election results about to land in 2 weeks. He was going anyway…

[Nina Schick @NinaDSchick]

Britain has made electricity so expensive and scarce that it cannot compete in the defining race of this century: the deployment of AI at scale.

This is Sovereign Suicide.

1/ Britain now has the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. At 25p per kilowatt-hour, its power costs stand at double the EU average and quadruple those of the US (6p) and China (7p).

2/ Energy-intensive output has collapsed by 33% since 2021. In 1970, manufacturing accounted for 30% of UK GDP; today, it is just 8% — a lower share than Thailand (26%).

3/ But this isn’t just about the death of old industry. Just as cheap electricity determined the industrial powers of the past, it will now determine the AI superpowers of the future.

4/ The real competition is not about who builds the best AI models, but who can afford to run them. Sovereignty in this century isn’t found in “green ledgers” or offshore wind farms; it is found in the physical ability to process Intelligence at an industrial scale.

4/ Britain’s current path is a dead end. There are 140 data centers in the UK’s grid connection queue, representing 50 GW of demand — more than the entire country’s current peak usage (45 GW). For many, the quoted connection date is 2040.

5/ As Intelligence proliferates, productivity will no longer be measured in man-hours, but in Tokens-per-Watt: how many units of ‘Intelligence’ a kilowatt-hour of electricity can buy. With its 25p rate, it is already 400% more expensive to buy Intelligence in Britain than in China or the US.

6/ This is a direct hit to the UK services sector, which accounts for 82% of the economy. As AI automates knowledge work, British firms must 'rent' intelligence from foreign clouds at predatory rates just to stay competitive.

7/ Even if Britain builds domestic AI infrastructure, the 25p barrier means it would be structurally uncompetitive from day one. This leaves only the path of outsourcing national productivity to foreign clouds, a permanent transfer of British wealth.

8/ True sovereignty requires a radical shift to dedicated, low-cost power for compute. Without cheap energy, Britain won’t just lose its factories — it may lose its offices, too.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@TUIUK I managed to speak to the rep at 11:30 this morning. Luckily it seemed to all calm down. Shame that was 12 hours after you needed to be telling people what’s going on and what you are doing. @TUIUK , consistently poor is an emergency.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@GoodwinMJ @TimesLucy

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@GoodwinMJ @TimesLucy Funny, that’s about the only Times article NOT behind a paywall… that’s weird…!

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@LiamHalligan @LiamHalligan you talk on Planet Normal of your junior years meeting ‘serious people’ and ‘captains of industry’, political thought leaders. You are one of those people now, not sure if you noticed. Keep up the great work co-pilot!

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@Keir_Starmer Disinflation ≠ deflation…!!! Shockingly illiterate comment.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@studaviesreform @haeslhop

[Benonwine @benonwine]

You might of hated Margaret Thatcher, but you sure did know she knew what she was doing. 🇬🇧 ✌️✊

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@trussliz

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@Keir_Starmer I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about the next election…..

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@EU_Commission

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@trussliz @NewStatesman @afneil You may both be right. BOE may have caused it, but failure to land policy to fix bloated state and debt/GDP made it visible to the markets and opened up a yield delta that labour continue to widen. You made it visible, that made it real.

[Rod Mcclair-burgess @diamondhotrod]

@GMB @susannareid100 @edballs It’s just not working out…. we’re calling a general election!